pink

My eye was surprised to catch out of the corner of my eye, this shock of pink in a landscape of gray and brown when I was out the other day. What was blooming now, at the end of November, after freezing temperatures?

I quickly realized that what I was seeing was the dried flowers of an Eriogonum. I've called it Eriogonum wrightii (Wright's buckwheat) although I could be wrong. The white autumn flowers fade to pink and orange  (like Eriogonum umbellatum, the sulfur buckwheat, which begins chrome yellow then fades to red/russet) and hold most of the winter.

I tried getting some from Agua Fria nursery a year or two ago, but somehow ended up getting E. jamesii (Antelope buckwheat) instead, which has cream flowers fading to brown.